How are internship/job opportunities in UCF compared to UF?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Florida
1

<p>How are internship/job opportunities in UCF compared to UF?</p>

<p>Im applying to both to study Electrical/Computer Engineering and I am not leaving school till I get at least a masters. However, I would like to know which of the two, location-wise obviously, offer the best internship/job opportunities?</p>

<p>Im thinking UCF does, but my interest in that is counterweighted by UF's "prestige".</p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

2

<p>There is a whole country worth of EE jobs. College location means little unless you REALLY want to work locally. Obviously nobody stays in Gainesville to work as an EE unless they got hired by a professor as part of his/her company (which I know a select few cases of). UF will give you a degree that's more mobile, and I can tell you for a fact that more companies recruit at UF than UCF.</p>

<p>Internships don't have to be local. The internships I know of at UF in EE were generally out West in Silicon Valley or in Austin, TX.</p>

<p>Also, if I may attack UCF on a student quality level, a guy here at GT went to UCF and he gripes constantly about the retardation he put up with on a daily basis from the people there. He said it was pretty fun, but in a "continuation of high school" sort of way. Do you really want to spend 4 more years in high school instead of preparing for your future?</p>

3

<p>It's not even a comparison in my opinion. UF hands down has some of the strongest job placement & alumni connection out there. The Career Resource Center at the Reitz Student Union was rescently ranked 13th overall.</p>

4

<p>It's pretty much true GThopeful...The quality of UCF students is pretty low caliber, as they definitely have a much harsher "party ethic," even more of that then the supposed "number 1" party school, UF. </p>

<p>I heard a great quote on this forum once about UCF, something like, "UCF is where all the people from high school go that you never want to see again."</p>

<p>From experience, that's pretty much 100% true...All of the people I know that went off to UCF did so for party reasons alone, and have pretty much not matured much if at all since I met most in 8th grade.</p>

5

<p>There is no question whatsoever on whose college of engineering is far superior than the other. As already stated here, UF engineering students/graduates will get internships/jobs anywhere they want in the country. Are you from Orlando? You could always move to Orlando for the summers to do an internship.</p>

6

<p>It’s like I’m surrounded by Gators and Jackets ha.</p>

<p>From a high schooler perspective with a senior class of 900+ in Central Florida…UCF is NOT where the high schoolers go you never want to see again. That would be USF and FSU because none of them could get into UF due to grades (Oh no! No more Tebow does that mean the bandwagon is going to leave just as fast as it came 3 years ago?) I only know of 13 people who do plan to attend UCF in fall 2010. (I took a random sample of 300 seniors for the yearbook on where they plan on going to college). </p>

<p>First off let’s drop all the bias statements toward UCF because anyone who’s mature in high school can realize all kids care about is “their image” that’s why they love picking prestigious schools, so they can post it on their facebook for the rest of their high school career and brag to their friends. Yes, getting degrees from GT and UF will help more finding your first job non-locally, but being the son, nephew, and brother-in-law to engineers (one being from UF) none of them has stuck with their first jobs anyway.</p>

<p>And no offense to you Georgia Tech fans, but you’ll be receiving a couple of lazy potsmokers with high SAT scores from my school. </p>

<p>I’m not saying UCF is a better school than UF or GT because it isn’t but I wouldn’t say it’s filled with idiots getting a second hand education either.</p>

<p>Here’s some facts to back this up. (UF vs. UCF)</p>

<p>UCF:</p>

<p>Largest full-time freshmen enrollment in the state</p>

<p>5,974 students in CECS </p>

<p>4,987 undergraduate students
508 Masters and Post-bac students
479 PhD students </p>

<p>Top 20% (of 194 schools) in research expenditures for the college and affiliated research centers</p>

<p>Departments
Rank (Percent)</p>

<p>Civil Engineering (of 211 schools)
22nd (Top 10%)</p>

<p>Mechanical Engineering (of 276 schools)
43rd ( Top 16% )</p>

<p>Computer Engineering (of 165 schools)
12th (Top 7%)</p>

<p>Computer Science inside Engineering (of 148 schools)
2nd (Top 1%)</p>

<p>Electrical Engineering (of 255 schools)
25th (Top 10%)</p>

<p>Engineering Technology (of 69 schools)
13th (Top 19%)</p>

<p>(From what I’ve read)
For Aerospace and Mechanical - UCF or UF
For Biomedical - UF
For Civil Engineering - UF
For Chemical Engineering - UF or UCF
For Computer Science - UCF
For Environmental - UCF</p>

<p>USF and UM also have good engineering schools so you might consider looking into them as well.</p>

<p>Source(s):
[UF</a> College of Engineering](<a href=“http://www.eng.ufl.edu/about/index.php]UF”>About - Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering)
<a href=“http://www.cecs.ucf.edu/fastfacts.htm[/url]”>http://www.cecs.ucf.edu/fastfacts.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

7

<p>

</p>

<p>I don’t know exactly where you are in central Florida, but UCF happened to be just far enough from my high school that people felt like it was “far”, but not local enough that people would consider you a loser for staying at home after high school. Hence, anyone who couldn’t get into a better school (unless they qualified for the honors college there) matriculated there. USF happens to be too “local”. My guess is that your high school is closer to Orlando than Tampa.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Well, the thing is that your first job is important because it sets the pace for your entire career. Your starting pay will be fairly correlated with where you graduate from, and so over the course of your career you will trade up for a higher and higher salary. Some places will give you raises of a certain percentage each year, which would make your starting salary quite important. This is one of the reasons why many people will justify going to the more prestigious school (of course now schools have been jacking up tuition to offset these gains, but I digress).</p>

<p>

Yeah SAT is pretty much the only thing they look at for admissions. Oh well, they’re fodder for the actual hard-working kids.</p>

<p>Not sure where you got those rankings from since your UCF page gives me a 404, but I’ll agree with potentially choosing UCF for CS. UF does not seem to tout its CS program nearly as much as its engineering. I know a few CS students from UCF who seem to be very successful now in landing jobs.</p>

<p>Having written what I did over a year ago, I’m going to stick with my assessment of it being High School 2.0. I’m sure the education is not second rate, but the average student you encounter is most definitely less capable than a UF student. This may be important to some.</p>

8

<p>I live probably 45 minutes away from UCF, and I guess it’s too local for everyone around here even though 45 minutes to me seems far enough to keep your parents from surprise visiting you constantly. For being close to UCF it seems A LOT of kids do not want to go there. </p>

<p>Also I think it’s funny how UF is a lot more competitive to get into because they just are doing so well in football. My sister got into UF one year before they won the two sport national titles and her GPA was a 3.9 with a 1240 SAT which I’ve heard cases lately of kids getting denied with 4.3 GPA’s and 1300 SAT scores, but I know that’s not the case for everyone. </p>

<p>Until UCF starts doing really well in football (hoping for first bowl win against a BCS team in another week) meaning top 25 consistently which would be tough for a non-bcs conference…a lot of kids will downplay the new, local college. Because in my experience kids just care about the name of the college and its prestige, not that GT and UF aren’t excellent schools in almost any aspect because they are.</p>

9

<p>Oh and I understand your point in making UCF is high school 2.0, I’m just saying in my case FSU is my high school 2.0 lol</p>

10

<p>You are surrounded by higher quality students who are much more motivated on a general basis than students you would encounter at FSU or UCF, this makes it competitive but it does bring the best out of you. Why do I say this? I only can speak on FSU’s half as I transferred from there (I treat FSU and UCF on equal footing, FSU having the edge in tradition, history and broader range of programs). I transferred from FSU to UF because I found it terribly hard to be motivated and focused, seems like A LOT of kids I met there are not utilizing college resources and instead treat college as a 4-year vacation. Just my 2 cents. No bias, the truth does lie somewhere in the middle.</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>Bull****. I know 6 people who got accepted into UCF and deferred by FSU… And you’re just stupid if you think that the only reason for going to FSU is because you can’t get into UF. Personally, I don’t like the campus atmosphere and the whole better-than-you attitude that nearly everyone seemed to have (oh and I’m not an athlete, but there was a lot of unwarranted jock hate when I visited. It was kinda of surprising considering the fact that you guys were still undefeated while I was there), and then there’s the fact that they don’t even offer my major (MIS) or IT, but some BS substitutes that are only somewhat related…</p>

12

<p>UF over UCF for virtually any subject, especially engineering. </p>

<p>The faculty-student ratio alone kills UCF compared to the flagship schools of UF and Florida State.</p>

<p>Student to Faculty ratio - Fall 2008 CDS:
FSU: 20.5 to 1
UCF: 29.9 to 1
UF: 20.3 to 1</p>

<p>Are you kidding??? Sure - go to UCF so you can have LESS access to faculty!</p>

13

<p>^ Parent makes a good point - UCF can’t even compete with FSU.</p>

14

<p>I am a UCF student who got into USF and Penn State and I completely disagree with the caliber of student. Yes we are a party school, but its not engineering majors that go out. I know numerous undergrad engineers at UF who are doing really bad GPA wise. Class size doesn’t matter because the teacher is not going to make the effort to help you pass, you have to do it. Engineering in general is one of the hardest majors around so any school you attend will give you a challenge. </p>

<p>Just some fun facts:</p>

<p>Deans list for UF engineering is a 3.0 UCF is 4.0</p>

<p>FSU did not have their OWN engineering program till recently</p>

<p>USF has a bunch of strange people</p>

<p>Its all about who you know and not what you know </p>

<p>UF does not party as hard as UCF :)</p>

<p>PS: Your supposed to enjoy college, its only 4-5 years of your life that you can never get back. </p>

<p>whats the difference between the engineer with a 4.0 and a 2.0?
nothing, they are both engineers</p>

15

<p>I can’t speak for UCF, but as far as CS/engineering/quantiative majors, UF does pretty good with internships and fulltime career opportunities. Many elite companies from a different number of industries regularly attend UF career fairs and recruit talent at UF. Within my peer group, I haven’t heard of any qualified student who put forth any effort coming up short in the internship/job search.</p>

<p>Just for a particular data point, I had summer internships in Silicon Valley and NYC. I found my current fulltime job via the career fair by happenstance (keep your eyes and ears open and always be receptive)</p>

16

<p>this thread is old but since i am here anyway, i like to stress the point that i have been trying to get across enthusiastic undergrads for long. i attended/interned/worked at ucf, georgia tech, mit and bell labs. there is absolutely no difference between any of these places “provided” you are self-motivated and really interested in learning the subject. science does the change between harvard, lamar and xyz universities. e=mc2 is always the same. there are motivated and energetic professors everywhere. your good use of their knowledge coupled with self-motivation, hard work and determination will take you places but not a university rank or prestige. unless you are someone who needs constant spanking on your back in the form of competition from other students, knowledge is not bound within the walls of a ranked university. if you are so dependent on the mercy of the environment generated because of the presence of smart students, your self-motivation levels are definitely weak and no ranked school can do any good for you. good univeristy rank is mostly a result of large programs (and hence more number of self-motivated researchers). focus on studies rather than on rank, prestige, party culture, beaches, earthquake zone rating, reputation of near by airport, city population and number of accidents in the locality, the number of hairs on your head etc. then the importance of going to ucf or uf or harvard will be reduced to only the gratification of your ego and nothing more. if you can reach that mental state, you will see wonders happening.</p>

17

<p>When I first came here at UCF I was a Engineering major, changed to Economics. Here’s what I heard, UCF is the best engineering school in the state–that’s a complete lie. Lockheed Martin places UF #1 in terms of where they recruit over Georgia Tech and UCF. Please guys, do not make the same mistake I made, I learned alot and overall, I hope I get into UF in the spring. It’s a no brainer to me now, before it was alot of crap I heard from different people. Don’t let an opportunity pass you by. I heard from a friend that he chose to come to UCF because he felt better about the people here (and he loves football)–then I found out he was not as hardworking as I once heard and is barely making it by here. So, guys if you are smart and motivated you want to be around smart people–not average. Sorry, but being a UCF student, I feel everyday I am limited and just hope I can get out and get a UF education–one I can afford and has a better name recognition. Because, believe it or not you might not go to Harvard–but the Gator Nation is strong and powerful beyond measure. Do not MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I MADE COMING TO UCF!</p>

<p><a href="mailto:sbeckett20@gmai.com">sbeckett20@gmai.com</a> if you have any questions</p>

18

<p>Computer Science: UCF > UF
Engineering: UF > UCF, although UCF’s engineering school is definitely not bad mind you</p>

<p>By the way, UCF doesn’t have Chemical Engineering. That may be another factor.</p>